Every time you engage in credit, the creditor is obligated to inform you of the total cost of the credit. You know exactly how much you will pay back. This can be much yes but you also shouldn't recklessly take on debt.
You are not deceived into "cheap" money.
Yes, technically they are informed, and you could technically say that it's their own fault if they take out a loan with an insane interest.
But what is a "sane" and "normal" amount of interest?
Over a long enough time, ANY interest WILL lead to debt slavery.
How?
The interest on the principal has to come from somewhere.
It has to come from newly printed money.
The debtor cannot print the money, doing so would be illegal.
Only the people at the top of the pyramid, the bankers and their underlings, can print the money.
They then "inject" that money into the "economy" via various channels, but they are all via newly created debt aka new loans.
Either the state takes out new loans in order to continue paying the paychecks of public servants, politicians, social transfers and subsidized healthcare (and all other state-subsidized industries).
Or private individuals take on those new loans, and it goes into their hands.
This "new" money then goes into circulation in the "economy" and over some amount of transactions, enters the hands of the "old" debtors, that already have loans to repay, and that money goes to repay the interest on the loan.
But now the person or organization that has taken on that "new" loan, that has injected the newly printed money into circulation, has to repay his loan. And where does he get the money to repay the interest? You guessed it, yet another new round of money printing and "injecting" - via even more loans.
Now, the person taking on the new loan to repay the interest doesn't have to be someone else, it can be the same person that has taken on the old loan, but hasn't managed to accumulate enough money via economic activity for the repayment.
So I don't know how you consider having to always take on new loans to repay the old ones is "normal", for me it's predatory and WILL lead to debt slavery. Might take 10 years, might take 50 years. But the person will not be able to survive without taking on larger and larger loans to repay the old interest. Compounding interest. The absolute percentage value of the interest might not seem high - only 2% to 5%, that's not a lot, right? But compound the interest over time and you get exponential growth of debt.
Why does everything in this fake pyramid scheme have to grow exponentially, or it doesn't survive? Compounding interest is why.
Now you might argue - hey, you don't have to take out loans at all if you don't like them that much. Technically you're correct.
But you'll also be dead.
See, you have to participate in this fake pyramid scheme "economy" that everyone else is, because you have to "make" money to pay for food, shelter and taxes. So some way or another, you have to have access to that newly printed money that has entered the economy via the latest round of loans. That is, if you want to maintain your *wealth*, in real measures (in tangible things, not in fake funny money) at the same level as it has been before. Because everything is growing exponentially, as compounding interest drives inflation and the cost of everything has to rise exponentially too.
A person that doesn't have access to newly printed money will be at an economic disadvantage to a person that has.
Say you have 2 businesses that compete in selling a product. The consumer looks at the price vs value of a product and buys the cheapest one that is the best value. One person is operating his business like you'd think a business has to be ran, by trying to make even or make a small amount of profit. The other person has taken out a loan and now has lots of "free" excess money to spend. This "greased" business can lower the price of its products way below market value, as it can spend that "free" money and not have to earn that money via selling products at market rate. This business will de facto win over the first business that didn't get this "free" money. The first business will go out of business as it will lose all its customers to the 2nd business.
The same goes for private individuals. The person that takes out loans will be able to afford a better apartment, bigger and better house, land, car, clothes, food, have more free time to spend, etc. His success in society will be reflected in his higher apparent social status that he displays, and he'll have more reproductive success - the women will like him more and he'll have more children. (it doesn't matter that he bought all these material things with loaned money that he didn't earn, the people don't know where the money came from). Now this person might go bankrupt if he can't afford to repay the loan, and he'll lose all these material things. But if he plays it right and he manages to repay the loans long enough to ensure reproductive success (has children) he will out-reproduce the person that hasn't taken out the loan. He only has to stay on top of paying back the loan, and when he doesn't have enough to repay, take out a new loan to continue servicing the old loan and stay on the same social status level as before.
Same goes when a state takes out these loans. The state typically uses the new money to finance various programs that give out money to citizens, either in exchange for work (creating new public jobs) or for free as handouts. A state that gives out more money than a competitor state will attract more people to it, they'll migrate after the "better" economic opportunities, and leave the state that pays them less. (or taxes them more)
Over time, these people, businesses, states can "buy out" or "conquer" the competitors that didn't take out the loans. As they'll have much more apparent success and have much more money to spend, they can buy out all the tangible assets from the people that have less money (have taken on less debt.)
But you might say - what if they give me money for free, then I didn't take on any debt at all but still have money to spend?
True, but as no new money was created, this money is still the "old" money from the previous round of money printing. Thus, the person that has taken out that loan to get that money (and has now given it away for free) is now that much further in the hole in repaying his loan. Eventually he'll have to take on a new loan, or get the money from others that have taken on new loans, to get back that money that he has given away. Or he will put himself in a disadvantage compared to his competitors, and over time will go bankrupt. Or in the case that he has a monopoly on power (he is a banker or is a part of the state apparatus) he can just steal the money from other people, via taxes or taking out a new loan leading to even more money printing and more inflation. Nothing is free, someone has to eventually pay, if not the person that has spent the money, then the entire rest of the pyramid has to pay via taxes or inflation.
Such a system will lead to enslavement of lower rungs and wealth and power concentration at the top of the pyramid, without question, just due to how it operates, the mathematics of it. Anything marketed as "freedom" is just at the charity of the people at the top, they can give you some freedom (they have so much money, or access to new money, that they have no idea what to do with it, so they can act philantropist and give some money away, invest some money in a business, etc.)
The only way to escape this enslavement via debt is to use an entirely different currency, that they can't manipulate, that they can't print. Because the entirety of their power comes from printing new money. Take that away from them, and they lose all their economic power. After that, only loyalty and violence will still give them power. Usually then a revolution happens and one or the other side wins and takes on absolute power again via money printing.
It's also why alternative currencies that can't be printed are illegal, or their value has been manipulated so much that they don't reflect the actual material value any more (as is the case with investment metals like gold and silver, which are also impractical in the modern age compared to digital money and the convenience of electronic transactions). Cryptocurrencies are a thing that they exceptionally allow, but again because they pose no real threat - either they've already bought in enough that they control the currency outright, or they can simply seize it if they want, they can even shut off the internet to stop the majority of cryptocurrency transactions. Plus, as an individual living in a state which taxes you in the state's currency, you have to pay the taxes in the state's currency, not in the alternative or cryptocurrency. So eventually you have to exchange it to the state's currency, and if such exchanging is illegal, your new currency is worthless. You also have to control the land on which you live on, so that you're not taxed for it in someone else's money, or your land isn't seized by force.
